The Private Patient

This is a BBC Radio drama based on P. D. James’ bestselling novel, starring Richard Derrington and Deborah McAndrew. In the seventeenth century, a witch is burned in a stone circle. Three hundred and fifty years later, an investigative journalist arrives at a nearby clinic to have cosmetic surgery – and a week later, she is dead. Dalgliesh and his team, called in to investigate the murder and later a second equally horrific death, find themselves confronted with problems even more complicated than the question of innocence or guilt. Family secrets, witchcraft, illegitimacy and the connections between past and present all come to the fore in this gripping, fast-paced adaptation of P. D. James.